Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can create itself from nothing
Spontaneous creation (Hawking)
Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, and it is not necessary to invoke God.
Gravity's negative energy balances that of matter: a whole universe can arise from nothing, with no God needed to start it.
"Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can create itself from nothing" is an argument by Stephen Hawking (Hawking and Mlodinow, The Grand Design, 2010, 2010) on the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" (answer: physics answers). Its claim: Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, and it is not necessary to invoke God. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P3). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.
In September 2010 the physicist Stephen Hawking published The Grand Design with Leonard Mlodinow. The Times published extracts before the book's release, and the press picked up one sentence: because of a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. This "spontaneous creation" is, they write, the reason there is something rather than nothing, and it is not necessary to invoke God to set the universe going. Their physical reason comes down to one idea: the positive energy of matter can be exactly balanced by the negative energy of gravity, so that the total energy of a whole universe can be zero. Creating a universe then "costs" nothing.
click a premise to reject it
Without the implicit premise: Without P3, the computer finds a case where laws suffice to bring the universe into being but where those laws are themselves willed by a creator.
Objections
3Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.
DDavid Albert 2012 · attacks the conclusionAlbert, a philosopher of physics, replies to a neighbouring book (Krauss's): where do the laws of physics themselves come from? And the "nothing" of quantum theories is not nothing: it is a particular arrangement of fields, whereas true nothing would be the absence of the fields themselves. A law like gravity is not nothing either.
a defender replies
Albert, a philosopher of physics, replies to a neighbouring book (Krauss's): where do the laws of physics themselves come from? And the "nothing" of quantum theories is not nothing: it is a particular arrangement of fields, whereas true nothing would be the absence of the fields themselves. A law like gravity is not nothing either.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1714 · attacks premise 2The sufficient reason cannot be found in the sequence of contingent things. Even if a law such as gravity brings the universe into being, one must say why this law exists rather than another or none. This is not a reply by Leibniz to Hawking, which never took place, but the modern form of his principle of reason.
no reply
The sufficient reason cannot be found in the sequence of contingent things. Even if a law such as gravity brings the universe into being, one must say why this law exists rather than another or none. This is not a reply by Leibniz to Hawking, which never took place, but the modern form of his principle of reason.
JJohn Lennox 2011 · attacks premise 3In God and Stephen Hawking, the mathematician and philosopher John Lennox replies to Hawking that his claim presupposes the law of gravity and the physical theory describing it. For him, a law of nature depends on the nature it describes: it cannot bring it into existence. Laws describe what happens; they create nothing. Choosing between "God" and "the laws" is therefore a false choice, like choosing between the engineer and the laws of physics to explain an engine.
no reply
In God and Stephen Hawking, the mathematician and philosopher John Lennox replies to Hawking that his claim presupposes the law of gravity and the physical theory describing it. For him, a law of nature depends on the nature it describes: it cannot bring it into existence. Laws describe what happens; they create nothing. Choosing between "God" and "the laws" is therefore a false choice, like choosing between the engineer and the laws of physics to explain an engine.